


The phone

by Shinosuke



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Fear, Gansey just wants to help, Gen, POV Alternating, Ronan Being Ronan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinosuke/pseuds/Shinosuke
Summary: Gansey once tried to buy a phone for Adam. Here's why and how that went.





	1. Chapter 1

It was just a few minutes after 2am. Adam had worked his latest shift, he had been home for an hour and he still had about half an essay to write. It wasn’t due tomorrow, but that didn’t ease his pressure. He was working late again tomorrow, had to start another essay, study for a vocabulary-test and read another three chapters for his history class. There was only one way he could somehow make this plan work: He HAD to follow his schedule. If he was fast, he could still catch three hours of sleep before he would have to get up again to work before first period at school.

He was sure that his parents were already asleep, he had entered the trailer almost soundlessly and his work wouldn’t wake a sleeping dog. The shrill ringing of the only telephone in the house would.

Adam jumped. He knew that there were two possibilities: First, it was an emergency. Someone had to contact his father, his mother… That would be acceptable. It was not very probable, but possible.  
Second, it was Gansey, which might be an emergency nonetheless, but one that his father would show no sympathy for.

He had to take the call before his father did. Maybe he hadn’t heard it? Adam threw the two books he altered between for his research, as well as his halfway finished essay to the side to get up from his floor. Since there was no desk in his room, he switched from his floor to his bed to do his homework, depending on how much his back hurt from the last shift at the garage.  
It took him two steps to get to his door, where he froze with his hand on the worn-out doorknob. He heard the fury-loaded footsteps of his father behind it. He heard his rough voice, heavy with sleep and anger. “Yeah?!”

Adam forgot how to breath. He waited silently behind his door for his father to say something that indicated an emergency that had nothing to do with him. He had told Gansey, not to call him that late in the night, he did remember that, right? He was Richard “Owen Glendower had thirteen to fourteen children depending on the source and I can name them sorted by age or in alphabetical order, whichever is more convenient to you” Gansey. He remembered. Right?

“Who?”, Robert said on the other side of the door in the small hallway and Adams heart stopped for a moment. “No. You have any idea, what time it is?!” 

‘Please don’t answer that!’, Adam thought. He wasn’t a religious man, but in this moment, praying seemed more tempting than usual and more efficient than everything else.

“I KNOW THAT!”, Robert shouted. Adam's heart kicked back into action, forcing him to breathe again, as he slowly backed away from the door, careful not to step on the creaking spot one and a half foot in front of and ten inches left of the bed. He knew every safe spot to step on in the whole house, expect from his parents’ room. Quickly he gathered his books and the essay from the floor and placed himself and them as unsuspiciously as he managed on the bed and waited. He acted busy and braced himself for the incoming storm as he heard Robert end the conversation with “Said no! Don’t call again!”

Adam heard him smash the phone down and took a deep breath, trying to look as unconcerned as he could. It didn’t work, he still flinched when his door exploded into the room.  
“You better tell your fancy friends not to call here again!” Adam lifted his gaze to his father. He slowly got up, he didn’t want to sit so far below him, where he was an easy target.

“I did.”

“Didn’t do much good, did it?!”

“I’m sure he just forgot-“

Robert took the two Adam-steps from the door to the bed with one angry Robert-strode and grasped for Adam's shirt just before Adam could get himself out of the way. “Then you remind him!”, he growled. “You got yourself those rich-ass, useless classmates! Tell ‘em how hard-working people sleep this late in the night!”

Although it struck Adam, that the hardest-working person in the trailer hadn’t, he just nodded. He hadn’t been spending enough time with Ronan yet to say something just because it was true. “I will.”, he promised.

His father jerked at his shirt to underline the urgency of his demand, then he let go. He was tired and just wanted to sleep, Adam knew that. Still, when Robert turned around to leave for his bedroom, Adam heard himself ask “Did he say what he wanted?” He didn’t have enough time to regret his question as his father spun back around, using the speed for his swing. He hit Adam's cheek with the back of his hand, forcing Adam to stumble half a step before he lost his balance. One arm on the bed was enough to brake his fall.

“I’m tired. So I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. We clear?”, he asked and glanced menacingly down on his son, who didn’t even try to straighten himself again when Robert was still so close to him. Adam merely covered his reddening cheek with his free hand.

“Yes, Sir.”, Adam said obediently and nodded. “Sorry.”

Robert shot him a cold look, before he dismissed him. “Good.”, he just said before he left.

It took Adam some effort to move again. Slowly he folded himself to the floor against his small bed. He pulled his knees against his chest and buried his burning face in them. His hands shook with fear, his eyes burned with shame, his cheek throbbed with pain. 

He gave himself a few minutes to get everything back together, so he could continue his work on his essay. To him, this was his only ticket out of here, he couldn’t let his future be held down by his present. Tomorrow he would have to talk to Gansey about this, but he couldn’t deal with him even in his head right now.

‘Calm down.’, he told himself. ‘You’ll make it out of here. Get up and fight the fight you make the rules for.’ He lifted his head and looked reproachfully at his hands until they stopped shaking, so he could write again, then he pulled the books and the essay down to the floor and got to work as he always did. He was a machine only he knew how to fix and he had to keep it running to prevent it from breaking.


	2. Chapter 2

“Congratulations, Gansey. You will probably be Parrish’s first murder-victim.", Ronan said with mild surprise. They were waiting for their break to pass, Ronan sitting on a low brick-wall that Gansey only trusted to hold his coffee.

“That is not funny.”, Gansey answered. He put the phone away that he had just shown to Ronan.

“You don’t see me laughing, do you?” Ronan actually looked pretty serious now. “I am convinced that he WILL in fact murder you, when you give that thing to him.” Only Ronan managed to pronounce _that thing_ like he meant a naked rat some cat had just dragged in while actually speaking about a cellphone.

Gansey sighed. “I am not going to give it to him. I’m not that gullible.”

“Which you still have to convince me of.”, Ronan answered. “You know he won’t take it. He tried some kind of death-glare the last time you wanted to give him your spare-eraser.” He shook his head in unspoken disbelief that his best friend had a spare-eraser. “So what are you gonna do? Put that thing in his bag and hope he won’t notice what you did?”, he asked mockingly.

Gansey looked at his bag where the silhouette of the phone seemed to imprint itself on the leather from the inside as if it wanted to tell the whole world, what it was and where it was hiding. He tried some words in his head before he gave Ronan an answer that would only make himself look like an idiot, but by doing so he apparently lost too much time.

Ronan burst into his evil, enjoying laughter. “You’re fucking kidding, right?! That’s exactly what you were going to do!”

Gansey cleared his throat, but Ronan didn’t let him get any further than “Well-“.

“You know what? When he’s done with you, I’ll make sure your tombstone’s gonna say ‘He had it coming harder than this granite’.”

“I get your point, thank you, Ronan.”, Gansey said dryly. “What do you in your endless wisdom think I should do? You know it can’t continue like this. He’s not coming to class today and you can’t tell me it’s not because of my call last night.”

Ronan shook his head sighing to wipe the grin off his face and face the situation with a reasonable and not so typical amount of earnestness. “First, it’s not because of your call. Your call didn’t beat the shit out of him again.”, he said with a venom in his voice, Gansey had heard many times, but not very often when they were talking about Adam.  
It hadn’t been until a few weeks prior that Ronan had actually acknowledged the gaunt, pale-haired boy as a part of their group and he didn’t seem to care enough about him to really get worked up about Adam’s abusive father. In a strange way, Gansey felt relieved. Since Niall’s death it had been increasingly difficult to introduce Ronan to people and to introduce people to Ronan, but maybe he could get along with Adam after all.

“And secondly”, Ronan continued. “you shouldn’t try to solve it the Gansey-way. He obviously doesn’t want our help, so why force it on him?”  
Gansey considered that for a moment. Why was he so obsessed with getting Adam out of there when Adam wasn’t? “But this can’t go on like that. He’s going to end up dead before college.”

“Most people do, that’s just what Highschool does.”, Ronan commented.

“I’m not having this conversation right now.”

Ronan just shrugged and started tucking on his leather-braceletts.

“But you know what I mean. I fear one day I’ll drive there to deliver his homework and walk in on his parents discussing where to hide his body.”

“And what are you gonna do about it right now? Besides not calling again in the middle of the night? Idiot’s not gonna defend himself. I proposed to teach him how to fight, so at least he could deal with that shit on his own, but he didn’t want to.”

Gansey looked at Ronan as if he had to make sure his contacts were still working. “You wanted to teach him how to box?”, he asked without even an effort to drain the surprise from his voice.

“Yes, Gansey. That’s what I just said.”, Ronan answered.

“And how is it that when you try to help him, he just doesn’t want it and when I do it, it’s going to end with you choosing what to write on my grave?”, Gansey asked. He was getting as tired of the conversation that he had with Adam a few times and that Ronan clearly didn’t want to have just as much, but he couldn’t just let it go.

“Well, first of all, my offer implies that I know how to box.”, Ronan said, looping his index-finger in one of the bracelets before directly untangling it again. “Look. I know I’m generally not a good example, but this time it works. You know how Declan is all worried for me and trying to help me and shit?”

Gansey looked up to him with a resigned look on his face. “Tell me you’re not saying I am his Declan.”

“I sure hope not, because I like you, but you get where I’m going with this.”, Ronan said, bending his fingers and stretching them again. “You can’t help him if he doesn’t want you to. Even if he’s heading straight towards his grave.”

“You know, this all would have been a lot more convincing if it had not ended with someone killing themselves because of their principles.”, Gansey commented. He sighed and brushed his fingers over his bag where he knew the phone to sit.

Ronan gave him an observant look, making him appear even more like a snake staring at its meal. “You’re gonna give it to him anyways, right?”, he asked.

“Yes.”, Gansey admitted, but then he hesitated. “No. I’ll ask him to take it.”

“Good luck.”, Ronan said, pushing himself off the wall. He landed right before Gansey and halfheartedly brushed the dust off his pants. “Tell me how it went.”

“Where are you going?”, Gansey asked. “I thought you wanted to make it through the whole day this time.”

“Nah, pass.”, Ronan just said unenthusiastically and held up a hand. “Besides, YOU wanted me to make it through the whole day this time.”

“I can dream.”, Gansey said with a sad shrug.

Ronan laughed. “You need to try harder.” And with that, he left Gansey and his puzzled expression behind on his way to the parking lot.


	3. Chapter 3

Gansey had stopped the Pig far enough from the Parrishs’ double-wide trailer that no one inside or outside of it would have heard him coming. He loved his car, but it was as unfit for sneaking up on someone as a helicopter. On a bad day a helicopter might be sneakier.

He hesitated to get out. He knew that Adam couldn’t continue like that and that he had to do something about him, but Ronan had mentioned a grave too often in their conversation earlier on, for him to just blindly walk into his execution, but that was just one reason why he stayed right where he was.

The other -much bigger- reason was, that he wasn’t sure whether or not Adam’s father was at home. He was not afraid of Robert Parrish and he would never avoid an argument that was had to be had, but he knew that in the end, he wouldn’t be the one who would have to deal with Robert’s violent rage and after last night, he didn’t want to be the reason for another bruise on his friend’s face. No matter what Ronan said, Gansey knew that he was the reason, Adam hadn’t been to any of his classes today.

He felt bad for this. Adam had told him, not to call this late in the evening. Just to make sure, he actually had told him better not to call at all, but he had given Gansey the number never the less and Gansey had promised to not call in any other scenario but an emergency. Sometimes, it was hard to define emergency, though.

An emergency was not new information about Glendower. An emergency was not Ronan staying out most of the night, usually. As he sat there, watching the trailer for a hint of any of its inhabitants, he thought that it probably hadn’t been an emergency last night. They were all alive today even though he hadn’t talked to Adam at night. If he hadn’t called, they would all even be “alive and well”. He had already spent his night worrying after his short conversation with Robert, then he spent his day regretting his call.

His thoughts turned back to the present when the front door of the Parrish’s trailer opened. Adam stepped out, he wore a shirt with old oil stains, Gansey had never seen on him. He took the old, tired metal frame that was his bike and started for the road, as he recognized the Pig and froze. He was too far away, but Gansey could have sworn that he saw how Adam’s eyes moved from left to right to discreetly look for an alternative route to work that would prevent a confrontation, or maybe for an escape route. Gansey realized that he was actually blocking the only way, Adam could take.

Immediately, he felt guilty. Should he get out of the car to face him? Should he stay inside to give Adam the chance to drive by and hide his face on his way, if that was what he wanted? Adam had started walking towards him, pushing the bike next to him. Was he stalling? Gansey decided that Adam was going to talk to him, so he got out of his car and leaned against it, waiting for Adam. Maybe he should have gone to meet him, instead of awkwardly standing there, waiting for his friend to catch up to him, but now it was too late. He would look even more ridiculous.

“Hi.”, Adam said when he stopped a few feet away from him. It was not what Gansey had expected and definitely not long enough for him to read any emotions from. Adam even kept a pretty straight face as he looked directly at Gansey. The swollen cheek seemed to be burning with shame and pride at the same time.

“Hey. You weren’t at school, so I thought I’d drive by and-“ Adam cut him off.

“I know why you’re here, Gansey.”, he said with a steady voice like he had rehearsed the words in his head on his way from the door. Maybe that was why he hadn’t ridden, but pushed the bike to the Pig.

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to do this, you know?”

Gansey felt it like a blow. He had been analyzed by a friend who was still a walking mystery to him.

“That’s not why I’m here. At least it’s not the only reason. I want to apologize. You told me, not to call and I did anyway, that was not right.” Adam didn’t look surprised.

“Yeah, I thought so. Hope it wasn’t too important?” It took Gansey a moment to react. He thought, Adam would have to expect the call to at least be ‘a matter of national security’-important, but there he was, hoping his miserable living-situation hadn’t caused any further trouble for anyone else.

“Depends.”, Gansey answered -unwilling to dismiss it as a triviality, but also unwilling to call it an emergency anymore. “It was actually- Sorry, it’s not important right now and not why I’m here.”, he said when he noticed Adam glimpsing at his watch. The shirt must have meant that he was going to work.

“Sorry. I don’t want to cut you off, I just…” Adam jerked at his bike and Gansey managed a nod.

“I know. I don’t want to keep you from work, just one more thing.”, he said and started looking through his bag. It was actually a good thing that Adam was in a hurry, when he thought about it. He got a hold of the phone and pulled it out. Adam’s face froze and it took for Gansey to actually hold the phone into his direction to slowly lift his gaze to meet Gansey’s eyes.

**********

“No.”, he just said, trying not to take the phone and smash it through the front window of the Pig.

“Adam, you can’t-“

“No, Gansey, YOU can’t be serious!” Disbelief was not as noticeable as his anger when he raised his voice. The usual control over his language was long gone, his words were heavy from his Henrietta accent. “You didn’t actually think, I’d take that, right?”

Gansey made the mistake of trying to answer.

“I-“

“Really? After all the times I told you that I don’t want your pity or your charity?!”, Adam asked. He was aware that this wasn’t how he was supposed to talk to a friend like Gansey. He probably hadn’t thought about money or about what it would mean to Adam, to be in anyone’s debt, but Adam did. Every time Gansey carelessly swiped his credit card at a register. Every time Ronan crashed something expensive. Every time he couldn’t afford the expensive coffee at school, that he desperately needed.

“It’s not charity!”, Gansey insisted. Adam wanted to explode.

“You’re spending money on something you won’t use just to give it to someone who couldn’t afford it on his own. How is this not charity?!”, he raged.

“But-“

“The only difference between this and literally “giving it to charity” is that I didn’t fucking ask for it!” The first door close to them opened and Adam realized that his neighbors were staring at their argument. His mother probably was looking through the window right now. How pathetic he was… So desperately struggling to get to his feet on his own that he actually had to fight off those who were trying to take this from him. This was the only way for him to become more than just the boy who escaped the trailer park and he seemed to so obviously struggle that someone like Gansey must have mistaken it for failure.

Adam’s cheeks burned. From his father’s blow and now with shame and anger. “Get this thing away from me and never bring it up again! I’m serious.”, he hissed. It was too late to hide from all the eyes, but they still stopped him from raising his voice again.

“Now I need to get to work.”, he just said and climbed on his bike to leave Gansey right where was. In the center of attention. Where he belonged.

**********

It took Ronan a few days to realize that Gansey and Adam weren’t talking. Adam missed another day at school, then Ronan missed one and on the third day, both of his friends looked too tired to talk and they had almost no classes together.

When he finally recognized the silence as a fight, it didn’t take him long to figure out, what had happened. After all, he had predicted something like that, when Gansey had shown him the phone… As much as he disapproved of Parrish’s stubborn sense of pride, he at least didn’t try to force anything on him anyways. Gansey was too stuck on the thought of helping, like he always was.

On day four, Ronan decided to let them figure their problem out on their own. He hadn’t been there, he wasn’t involved, he shouldn’t care. Of course he cared, but they didn’t have to know. They had to deal with their issue first.

On day five, Ronan doubted his decision. He was pretty sure, Gansey hadn’t slept all week and Adam looked just as tired in school. They cancelled a trip to an old church and Gansey tried to do homework with Ronan instead of Adam.

On day six, Ronan changed his mind. Both of them seemed unable to make a useful move towards the other and he didn’t like the situation. His friends wearing each other out. He decided to do something to force them to talk to each other again, so he figured out a subtle way to change their attention from each other to him instead.

On day seven, Ronan crashed his car.


End file.
